Densho Digital Archive - Peggy S. Furukawa Interview (denshovh-fpeggy-01-0010)

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TI: So how long were you in Japan before the war started?

PF: Almost... oh, I was there almost ten year, but the war started right after I finished the second... when the war started, I didn't know when the war gonna start or something like that, but then they said, "America and Japan is having a war." And I said, "Wow." But we can't go home.

TI: But were you there maybe, I think, three years before the war started? I'm trying to remember... you were eleven, so that'd be 1930...

PF: '9.

TI: '9? And so '40, '41, so two years?

PF: So I was... '39, then '40, '41, '42, '43, '44, I think.

TI: But you got there in '39, so you were there at least two years before the war started.

PF: And then when the war started, wow, yeah.

TI: Yeah, let's talk about that. So when you first heard that Japan and America is at war, what did you think?

PF: I said, "We can't talk English." Then we didn't talk English, we were scared. But Japan people didn't do nothing to us, put us in a home or nothing like that, they didn't call us or nothing. But I guess maybe I was too young.

TI: Did the, maybe... now, the police officer, your friend, knew that you were American. Did he ever say anything to you?

PF: No, no, nothing. He didn't say nothing to me. He didn't say the war started or nothing. He didn't say nothing. He thought I'll be scared not to come or nothing, but I wasn't scared. Because as soon as the war started, I went to factory work, Mitsubishi, airplane.

TI: How soon did you... when the war started, was it right away or was it maybe a little bit later?

PF: No, because... '48, '47 '46... '45 it started. Yeah. I was...

TI: Like did you finish school first?

PF: Yeah, I finished that. Fourth, fifth, sixth, then I went one, two. Then I went to work. So after five year, I went to work. But then the war started that time.

TI: Now when the war started between America and Japan, for you, did you think you were more American or more Japanese? Like what side did you think should win?

PF: Oh, I know America going to win. I know that, well, Japan didn't have the paper and pencil to go to school, and America had everything. And then Japan is this small and America is this big. How could Japan win? And then they're just starting to make the airplane? It was too late. And then their bombs don't even go up, American bombs fall down, I said, you hear all that and I said, "Nah." Yeah.

TI: But then the people around you, they probably thought Japan was gonna win.

PF: Yeah, yeah. I don't know how the Japanese people could win. That I couldn't understand. The big shot and everything, why they started the war when American... sure, if Japan was big like that, they could, but they don't have nothing. And I said, "Why they're fighting?" Well, atomic bomb, see, if they didn't drop the atomic bomb, they'll fight until, America and Japan people are fighting, they want to fight. But, see, they dropped the atomic bomb, that's why. See, the Okayama and Hiroshima is next door. Yeah, if they don't... that's what I couldn't understand. How could they do the war when they don't have nothing? And then we're fighting with wood, learning how to fight. I said, "When they come down, they got machine guns, they go boom like that and we're dead."

TI: But did you ever tell anyone this?

PF: No.

TI: So you were just really quiet.

PF: Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to say nothing. I said, "You can't." And why we're learning this? Who you gonna hit? And I can't understand why these Japanese people want to fight. They don't have nothing.